Comments from the Sponsor Adventure 23- Speedy Gonzalez
This game idea came to me from playing multiplayer civ. Firstly I like quick games, that is games that finish quickly and also played on quick speed. While playing Epic 13 (Potluck) I found epic speed just ponderous after playing mostly quick multiplayer games for so long. So I wanted a quick game, I chose normal speed b/c I know that most RB players do not like quick. Secondly I wanted a game that was going to play quickly, that is a game that rewards just snuffing the AI out (in the last potluck (as Sitting Bull) I wanted to rush the AI soo bad). Lastly I wanted to make destroying the AI fairly straight forward. In MP civ people will sometimes play unrestricted leaders (I think there is A LOT of potential for RB with this option!), but in MP civ with unrestricted leaders there is always one combination that is banned and that is any aggressive leader paired with Rome, because Agg. Prats are unstoppable! So that is just what I gave the player, Monty of Rome (originally I wanted Boudica, but as I was crafting the proposal the Boudica AW game came out, so I changed to Monty and that provided for a better/easier title
)
The map is also a bit MP inspired. Pangea is not a common MP map, but team battleground/donut/inland sea would not be very good for SP play. Rocky is a common MP setting because it provides lots of hammers for unit production, the trick on Rocky is to generate commerce and I thought that would be a nice challenge for this game. So with that in mind I gave the player plenty of production, but only ok commerce potential. The playerâs start is like an MP dream (except no river), often having a capital on a 3 hammer tile is enough by itself to get a win in ancient MP so I gave the player 2 okay food resources and the 3 hammer center tile (I wonder if people will move off of the stone tile?). I also gave the player horses (in BFC) and I gave the player iron in the 3rd ring. So what did I take from the player, good food nearby, a river, and happiness anywhere near the player. Also I moved the player out to the edge of the map, originally the player was near the 2 dye tiles with a pig resource (this is why you can see that land at the start), but this was too close to Ragnar/Korea.
Now because I gave the player soooo much (Agg. Prats, strong start, etc.) I had to give something to the AIs
. So they all got at least 2 food, a happiness resource and metal/horses. Also I chose the AIs very carefully. Obviously the Tokugawa/Native American is to provide a real challenge to a Praetorian Army with Protective + Totem Pole Archers and Aggressive Dog Soldiers, I also placed him in such a spot so that it would be most likely the second AI the player would want to conquer. An added bonus of this was that if you just left him til later b/c of the challenge then you would not likely be rewarded with any trades and likely receive an invasion. Ragnar/Korea was in the (probably vain) hope that we might see some Hwachas v. Prats. I chose Ragnar b/c he has good AI traits, if unmolested he will pose a challenge. My test games showed that Ragnar get hamstrung too early, any civ in that spot will probably get obliterated no matter its traits/UU/UB. Originally Ragnar had a grassland/gems, but I eliminated it when I could not think of a way stop the player from getting this capital really early, so I toned it down. The Tokugawa/Native American start got copper, wheat, and both furs added to it. I chose Hatty/Arabia b/c Hatty is a leader that the AI plays very strongly, I gave her Arabia for the sole reason that I wanted her to have cheap Madrassas so she can really lightbulb, use golden ages and build shrines to aid her tech. Since she is one of my two techers so I stuck her in the back. I also chose her because she will pursue religions vigorously, but unlike Saladin or Izzy, she won't war over them so much. I bet she gets all the religions. All I did to her start was put her on a plains hill, she probably has too much food. The AI has a tendency to grow into unhappiness when it has as much food as she does, I hope some cheap temples mitigate this some with her. Finally Wang Kon/Babylon got a REALLY nice cap, when/if the player gets here I expect (hope) him/her to be facing tech parity with a Fin./Protective civ. I wanted Protective Bowmen and probably should have switched Wang Kon with Ragnar/Korea.
This Section was added after the scoring mechanism being broken was brought to my attention and after reading some reports-
Well, what can I say? If I could do it over I would have allowed points only for Great Generals, then I would have provided like 3 bonus points for the most promoted unit out of all the games and eliminated the most units killed category. I also would have turned off Diplo victory (looking in your direction Kylearan) and Space victory. The religion points were a red herring since I figured the player would be hard pressed to get more than 2. I had meant the GP points to reward the player that sets what would other wise be a really good city to producing great people, but unfortunately that combined with points for the most promoted unit and most units killed allowed for milking to be more profitable than just racing to victory (even though the victory category was weighted more than the others). Maybe if all the point amounts for fastest finish were +10 I would get more what I was looking for? Oh well.
I had a lot of fun designing this scenario and even more fun reading the reports. Thanks to everyone that played and reported.
This game idea came to me from playing multiplayer civ. Firstly I like quick games, that is games that finish quickly and also played on quick speed. While playing Epic 13 (Potluck) I found epic speed just ponderous after playing mostly quick multiplayer games for so long. So I wanted a quick game, I chose normal speed b/c I know that most RB players do not like quick. Secondly I wanted a game that was going to play quickly, that is a game that rewards just snuffing the AI out (in the last potluck (as Sitting Bull) I wanted to rush the AI soo bad). Lastly I wanted to make destroying the AI fairly straight forward. In MP civ people will sometimes play unrestricted leaders (I think there is A LOT of potential for RB with this option!), but in MP civ with unrestricted leaders there is always one combination that is banned and that is any aggressive leader paired with Rome, because Agg. Prats are unstoppable! So that is just what I gave the player, Monty of Rome (originally I wanted Boudica, but as I was crafting the proposal the Boudica AW game came out, so I changed to Monty and that provided for a better/easier title
)The map is also a bit MP inspired. Pangea is not a common MP map, but team battleground/donut/inland sea would not be very good for SP play. Rocky is a common MP setting because it provides lots of hammers for unit production, the trick on Rocky is to generate commerce and I thought that would be a nice challenge for this game. So with that in mind I gave the player plenty of production, but only ok commerce potential. The playerâs start is like an MP dream (except no river), often having a capital on a 3 hammer tile is enough by itself to get a win in ancient MP so I gave the player 2 okay food resources and the 3 hammer center tile (I wonder if people will move off of the stone tile?). I also gave the player horses (in BFC) and I gave the player iron in the 3rd ring. So what did I take from the player, good food nearby, a river, and happiness anywhere near the player. Also I moved the player out to the edge of the map, originally the player was near the 2 dye tiles with a pig resource (this is why you can see that land at the start), but this was too close to Ragnar/Korea.
Now because I gave the player soooo much (Agg. Prats, strong start, etc.) I had to give something to the AIs
. So they all got at least 2 food, a happiness resource and metal/horses. Also I chose the AIs very carefully. Obviously the Tokugawa/Native American is to provide a real challenge to a Praetorian Army with Protective + Totem Pole Archers and Aggressive Dog Soldiers, I also placed him in such a spot so that it would be most likely the second AI the player would want to conquer. An added bonus of this was that if you just left him til later b/c of the challenge then you would not likely be rewarded with any trades and likely receive an invasion. Ragnar/Korea was in the (probably vain) hope that we might see some Hwachas v. Prats. I chose Ragnar b/c he has good AI traits, if unmolested he will pose a challenge. My test games showed that Ragnar get hamstrung too early, any civ in that spot will probably get obliterated no matter its traits/UU/UB. Originally Ragnar had a grassland/gems, but I eliminated it when I could not think of a way stop the player from getting this capital really early, so I toned it down. The Tokugawa/Native American start got copper, wheat, and both furs added to it. I chose Hatty/Arabia b/c Hatty is a leader that the AI plays very strongly, I gave her Arabia for the sole reason that I wanted her to have cheap Madrassas so she can really lightbulb, use golden ages and build shrines to aid her tech. Since she is one of my two techers so I stuck her in the back. I also chose her because she will pursue religions vigorously, but unlike Saladin or Izzy, she won't war over them so much. I bet she gets all the religions. All I did to her start was put her on a plains hill, she probably has too much food. The AI has a tendency to grow into unhappiness when it has as much food as she does, I hope some cheap temples mitigate this some with her. Finally Wang Kon/Babylon got a REALLY nice cap, when/if the player gets here I expect (hope) him/her to be facing tech parity with a Fin./Protective civ. I wanted Protective Bowmen and probably should have switched Wang Kon with Ragnar/Korea.This Section was added after the scoring mechanism being broken was brought to my attention and after reading some reports-
Well, what can I say? If I could do it over I would have allowed points only for Great Generals, then I would have provided like 3 bonus points for the most promoted unit out of all the games and eliminated the most units killed category. I also would have turned off Diplo victory (looking in your direction Kylearan) and Space victory. The religion points were a red herring since I figured the player would be hard pressed to get more than 2. I had meant the GP points to reward the player that sets what would other wise be a really good city to producing great people, but unfortunately that combined with points for the most promoted unit and most units killed allowed for milking to be more profitable than just racing to victory (even though the victory category was weighted more than the others). Maybe if all the point amounts for fastest finish were +10 I would get more what I was looking for? Oh well.
I had a lot of fun designing this scenario and even more fun reading the reports. Thanks to everyone that played and reported.
On League of Legends I am "BertrandDeHorn"
I would dearly have liked to play this game, if only I had gotten a working computer before last week. We will almost certainly do more with the Unrestricted Leaders option in the future too... 
